I have always been a person who has had an ambivalent relationship with objectivity. While I like being able to see things clearly and not be overly influenced with my perspective, I’m also a person who views emotion and feeling as being integral in the experience of joy, intimacy and rewarding experience.

So while trying to see things from a multiple of perspectives and being able to live in another man’s/women’s shoes, I also want to fully engage and participate in my own experience. I yearn to savor and relish my sentient life full of thoughts, feelings and sensations.

This has led me to have a very ambivalent relationship to science in which I utilize its objectivity to see things as they are, but then I quickly advance beyond pure objectivity and avail myself to the artistic subjectivity of life. In my song Thinking Inside the Box, I express the concern of overdoing objectivity in the following manner.

I object to the objective of your objectivity

In Science often the objective of objectivity is to avert and transcend subjectivity. The goal is often to annihilate the prejudicial view of subjectivity and to acquire objective Truth and Knowledge. Yet, for me pure objective knowledge is sterile and inhuman. I therefore object to the objective of objectivity!

I am enthralled with life in all its imperfections and impermanence. Life is a rewarding and unending process in which each day I become more intimate with myself, others and nature.

This brings me to my discomfort with the modern feminist framing of objectifying females and the female body. While I admit it is possible to objectify anything, including the female form/body I strongly react to how it is presented. I once again object to the objective of their claim that men generally objectify women.

The history of art in almost every society is dominated by a fascination with the female form. The female body in many ways is the goal and ideal of much of art. While one could point out that most famous artists have been male, one cannot discount the fact that even female artists have often favored drawing the female form. The female form is very prevalent in primitive art way before either gender had a profession or spent a greater amount of time drawing.

Since early adolescence I have been fascinated and enthralled with both the feminine energy and the female body. During hormonal peaks it has bordered on an obsession, but the appreciation of and the joy I acquire through the female body has remained strong even as my sex drive has decreased.

I feel it is an insult to my sensibilities to label and reduce my enthrallment of the female body as an objectification, or treating women as an object. My intimate relationship and attraction to the female body is similar to that of many females who are drawn to babies, or are brought to tears by contact with dolphins, puppies, or any other life form or object of beauty that touches their core.

I am drawn to the female body and all joys and ecstasy it provides my life. I have always been a dedicated partner who finds as much fulfillment in giving my lover an orgasm as I find in having one with them. My enchantment with physical and emotional intimacy is enhanced through time. Even after over three decades together I still find myself drawn to my wife an cherish each and every physical and emotional encounter that we have.

Her beauty has changed rather than diminished and the familiarity and intimacy are at the core of that lasting beauty. I know for me the beauty of the female body has been very diverse and I have never had an ideal form to which I was solely attracted to. In fact, it has been my experience that most of my male friends view of beauty was far less limited and idealized than what most of the females I know think.

The most attractive aspect of a woman to me has always been how comfortable they are with their body and their willingness and openness to feel ecstasy and share intimacy. I, and many men I know, find it easy to remain loyal and attracted to a partner who seeks and enjoys frequent sexual intimacy.

I do not deny that objectification of females exists, yet I feel the objectification occurs the more often the male sex drive is rebuffed, vilified and suppressed. The negative role that rejection plays in emotional and mental health is quite real and documented. Sexual repression can lead to many ills such as depression, perversion, isolation, violence, sadism and passive aggression.

The current frequent negative frame of the male sex drive as something to overcome and transcend is a form of repression. It is often asking men to deny their hormonal make-up or their basic nature just as we have done to homosexuals for centuries.

On so may levels I am disappointed in the current trends in discussion and attitudes regarding sex and gender. My sex dive has been central to much of the joy, intimacy and compassion in my life. It has been the exact opposite of “objectification”, it has been the very vehicle of my feeling and being connected and loving.

Here are the lyrics to Thinking Inside the Box

Thinking Inside The Box 9/15/13

I object to the objective of your objectivity
Ration rationality be intimate with intimacy

The reasoning of reason is unreasonable
The spirit of spirit is dispirited spirituality
The body of the body is mindful of the mind
The sensational sensation of sensuality

Our time in time is not timeless, yet
The momentum of the moment is oh so momentous
I disappoint disappointment by
reveling in revelation

I object to the objective of your objectivity
Ration rationality be intimate with intimacy

I despair the desperateness of disparity
I anticipate anticipatory anticipation
I feel feeling with feeling
I participate in participation

The body is the body of embodiment
Does the mind mind mindfulness?
Beware the wariness of awareness
Suckle the succulence of the succulent

I object to the objective of your objectivity
Ration rationality be intimate with intimacy
Think outside thinking outside the box

The riddle of the riddle is not a riddle
the mystery of mystery remains a mystery
Live the life worth living
Beware the nerve of the nervous
and the comfort afforded by the uncomfortable

I object to the objective of your objectivity
Ration rationality be intimate with intimacy
The momentum of the moment is oh so momentous
Think inside the box
Bodyfullness